


something old, something new

by saunatonttu



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Masquerade, Post-Future Arc, Pre-Relationship, TYL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24736645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: Shouichi has been trying his best to ignore the thread around his little fingers for most of his life.
Relationships: Dino/Irie Shouichi
Kudos: 15





	something old, something new

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sizhu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sizhu/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMO!!!!! ILY AND THIS ROWBOAT OF A SHIP

For most of his life, Shouichi had been ignoring the red thread tied around his little finger. Sure, he was curious about it as a child, as he was of most things, but early into his teen years he decided that the red ribbon belonged in the same category as the Sawada household: best not to think about it too hard, unless he wanted his head to burst.

And even while Sawada Tsunayoshi became rather prevalent person in his life despite Shouichi’s attempts, he kept himself from thinking about the red thread too much even when he realized who it tied him to.

The first time he met Dino Cavallone wasn’t under the best of circumstances. Sure, he had seen the man briefly from a distance in Italy before, but he hadn’t realized the Cavallone don was the man on the other end of the string.

It was during the preparations for the Choice match against Byakuran that Shouichi came to realize the truth and was faced with an age-old problem: to confront the existence of the red string of fate or not. But he was busy, and distractions were bad. He shut his mind and eyes to it, and Dino seemed to do the same as he never brought up the topic during those busy days.

They never got the chance to talk about it afterwards either – not until Byakuran burned away in Tsunayoshi’s magnificent, orange-tinted Sky Flames.

Grief, he felt for certain. But much more than that, there was relief. He nearly fainted, but Dino caught him by his elbow before he could.

“Looking a little unsteady there,” the Cavallone don said, squeezing at Shouichi’s arm while swiping hair away from his eyes with the hand the red thread was connected to. The red thread and Dino’s golden hair both glimmered beneath the sun, and Shouichi was at a loss for words as he stared.

“What?” Dino smiled, gentle and calming. He was possibly one of the few people in existence that had a soothing effect on Shouichi’s easily tightened nerves. Dino blinked and grimaced as though something occurred to him right then. “Is there something between my teeth again? Reborn used to give me hellish drills whenever I did…”

“No, no,” Shouichi said, laughing awkwardly. There was no other kind of laughter with him, really. His mother and sister had always made fun of him for that, too. Even now, surrounded by cheers and relief, it came out awkwardly. He wasn’t a fourteen-year-old boy at the cusp of puberty anymore, but he certainly felt like it at times.

“I was just,” Shouichi said, cheeks warm and panic gripping his heart as he tried to steady himself and push Dino’s hand away, “distracted.”

The red thread glimmered in the sunlight like a concrete thing. No one had ever mentioned seeing it. Dino made no mention of it either as he smiled at Shouichi and shrugged.

How he still wore his fur-lined jacket without suffocating in the warm spring weather, Shouichi had no idea. He stared helplessly as Dino moved on to welcome the young Sawada Tsunayoshi.

He didn’t know it yet, but this was the beginning.

*

The true Sawada Tsunayoshi smiled at him serenely, but Shouichi got the impression that the Vongola boss was making fun of him in his own subtle manner.

“Sawada-san,” he said a little flatter than intended. It was nice, he reflected, to work for someone who didn’t make him feel like he was walking along a tightrope. It left room for honesty, though his mother would chastise him for how impolite a tone he took with Tsunayoshi now. “You must be joking.”

“My younger self got you calling him by his first name so easily,” the mafia boss whined. While smiling. Shouichi had been through his play before, and he would not like to participate in it again.

“Well, asides from that,” Tsunayoshi said as he leaned back on his chair a few inches too wide for him. Tsunayoshi had grown from his teenage years considerably, but he wasn’t by any means the type of body builder the leather armchair was meant for. Hardly anyone commented on that anymore, from what Shouichi knew. Sawada Tsunayoshi’s strength was of different kind.

Tsunayoshi cleared his throat. “As I was saying, Shouichi. I know you dislike social events, but it would be nice to have everyone gathered around for a small celebration…”

“I don’t disagree,” Shouichi said. “I just…” Thinking of social events in the wake of everything that had happened – after years of working tirelessly as a double agent – was not good for his stomach. He already felt the usual squeamishness coming on.

People often laughed about his poor constitution, ignoring that it was anxiety first and foremost that caused it. Byakuran had been one of the exceptions that got it – and why he used Shouichi’s own weakness against him so effectively.

_No bitter thoughts, Irie Shouichi_ , he reminded himself and forced on a smile. _Not today._

“Shouichi,” Tsunayoshi said gently. “You don’t need to stay long for it if you don’t wish. But it would still be nice to celebrate a little…”

Tsunayoshi’s mouth turned into a slight grimace, but his eyes glinted with mischief as he continued, “Reborn told me to tell you there’s no backing out of it, too.”

_He could have started off with that,_ Shouichi thought as he sighed and let his shoulders drop in surrender. “You don’t need to threaten me, Tsu—Sawada-san. I’ll be there.”

It wasn’t as though he was against fun, after all. But – what concerned him mostly – he was very much out of touch with it. Tsunayoshi’s understanding smile did very little to put Shouichi at ease as he exited the Vongola boss’s office.

Oh, well. He could keep to Spanner’s side and engage in tech talk.

The thread around his little finger vibrated, and Shouichi closed his hand around it to keep the gleaming red color from his eyes.

Yes, there was that problem too.

*

Masquerade balls, Shouichi decided as he stood awkwardly at the edges of the party, were not as bad as he had imagined. To be fair, he had only ever been to one in his life, and while that too had taken place in Italy, it had been a vastly different experience.

That was not to say that Shouichi’s social anxiety had gotten any better since the first time. The cheap green mask atop his face pressed his glasses askew on his nose, and Shouichi had to continuously fix them as he surveyed what had become a makeshift ballroom amid the reconstruction of the Vongola mansion.

The wide room was almost brimmed with Vongola associates and family members. Hibari Kyouya was a notable absence, but Shouichi knew well the man loathed social events. This time it seemed that not even Dino or Tsunayoshi had managed to coax him into joining.

Mukuro wasn’t a Guardian to begin with; his absence was understandable. Chrome, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy herself as she chatted up Tsunayoshi’s friends in one of the more crowded corners.

Yamamoto and Gokudera were arguing over something – or rather, Gokudera was arguing while Yamamoto only smiled good-naturedly through whatever fit his friend was throwing. Even with their masks on – Gokudera’s was particularly gaudy – it was impossible to not tell who they were.

Spanner had gone off somewhere, too, amid Shouichi’s internal panicking upon arriving at the ballroom and seeing it so full. His tech-obsessed mind made him sometimes neglect other people, but Shouichi had never resented him for that.

He was much the same way, though the one he neglected was himself most times.

Lambo and Sasagawa must have been there somewhere as well, but Shouichi hadn’t caught them yet. Sasagawa would be impossible to miss, anyway, despite his short stature. Even over the band playing, Sasagawa Ryohei’s voice would dominate the room like a flash of lightning did a stormy sky.

Unlike him, Shouichi felt rather invisible despite getting some smiles from the people that recognized him – his bright red hair wasn’t _as_ big of an identifying marker in Italy as it had been back home in Japan, so a good number of people actually didn’t.

But he didn’t have time to even begin to feel lonely, when he felt a tug on the invisible thread around his little finger and heard Dino Cavallone sidling up beside him. Shouichi looked at him then and found Dino’s lips curling into a kind smile. His eyes squinted at Shouichi from the midst of the gentle forest green color of the glittering mask.

“Fancy meeting you here, Shouichi,” Dino said, seemingly oblivious to his own glimmering radiance. He seemed a bit uncomfortable in his tux, a sentiment that Shouichi certainly shared.

Shouichi was glad his mask hid the flush emerging high on his cheeks. “I could say the same to you… but then again, there was never any doubt you would be here, Cavall—"”

He was just about to tack in an honorific when Dino shook his head. “We’re well past the formalities, I believe.”

“Oh.” Shouichi’s nerves eased somewhat at that. “Dino-san, then.”

“Tsuna already dropped that with me, so you might as well,” Dino said with a playful wink of his eye. How he made the gesture so natural and genuine, Shouichi didn’t know. Even with his hair stylized like one would expect of a celebrity or, as was the case, a mafia boss, Dino radiated warmth and appealing personality.

“Please,” Shouichi said, smiling helplessly as he ran a hand through his hair nervously, “you’re asking too much of me.”

It wasn’t anxiety that made his heart flutter. He had been anticipating this one way or another since the beginning, he supposed, when he first recognized what the thread on his finger signified. From there, his life had counted days towards the inevitable.

Byakuran hadn’t been an inevitable encounter – he came to be because of Shouichi’s mistakes – but Dino… perhaps he had always been inevitable.

That he couldn’t have missed out one someone so warm and charismatic… Shouichi found himself comforted by the concept of fate for the first time in a long, long time.

Universe as a whole didn’t operate based on it, but perhaps fate was a small mechanism in a larger whole.

Dino’s smile and how his eyes crinkled with it felt like evidence to the hypothesis. But perhaps Shouichi was being too subjective here.

“It’s up to you, of course,” Dino said, brushing some extra hair away from the side of his mask. The dying sunlight from the windows made it glow golden orange. The sequins of his mask glittered along, nearly to the point of distraction. “I don’t mind. I just don’t like being too distant with people I want to know better, y’know?”

The thread between their little fingers vibrated again, more insistent to not be ignored. As if it had its own will.

“I’d ask you to dance, but you know me,” Dino continued. A grin twitched along his mouth, and Shouichi couldn’t help snorting when the Cavallone finished, “Got two left feet even with my people around. Just… don’t let Reborn hear that, yeah? He’ll get on my case if he figures I forgot my steps.”

Shouichi had heard rumors of the infamous Cavallone clumsiness but looking at Dino now he couldn’t believe it. “I don’t think I’m any better,” he said. “The last time I danced was in college, and that was…”

Shouichi grimaced, and that was enough of an explanation as Dino nodded understandingly.

“I bet,” he said. “I never went to college because, well. You know. My current career. Reborn.”

“Makes sense,” Shouichi said, shuddering as he recalled the few lessons he had seen Reborn dish out. “A different kind of torture.”

“You got that right.” Dino’s hand brushed against Shouichi’s elbow. “Do you need to go outside for a bit? You seem rather flushed, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Shouichi would have answered, were it not for the mask sliding askew on his face again. He yelped and hurried to right it back on his face, but this time his glasses sat all wrong on his nose.

Shouichi’s face burned – 25! he was _twenty-five_ , more than a little too old for this – but Dino only smiled expectantly until he managed to mumble, “Y-yes, that’d be nice. I think.”

*

It was indeed nice. Shouichi could take off the mask and breath in the clear air and let his face cool off. They talked for a bit about things normal people talked about – wonderful, Shouichi hadn’t had that in _ages_ – but the abnormal things crept in, because those were _their_ normal.

But Dino didn’t bring up the red thread of fate between them, even though from the way his eyes obviously glimpsed at the string every now and then Shouichi knew he was well aware of it.

Shouichi himself was too much of a coward to say anything.

And, he thought, maybe that was for the best for the time being. He had had his fair share of intense relationships – one friendship, really, but it had been enough to leave his heart bleeding – and he’d rather not leap into another one.

But there was hope at the end of the night, when Dino kissed his cheek good night and bid him farewell with a smile and a promise of coming to see him and Tsuna again soon enough.

Shouichi might have been left with awkward bruising on his nose from both his glasses and the mask, but he could at least say that the night hadn’t been a total loss.

“What’s got you smiling, Shouichi?” Spanner asked him after they had both taken off their masks and gone back to messing around with new technologies with Flames. The possibilities were endless, and Shouichi’s fingers itched for each one of them.

“I’m not,” Shouichi said, smiling. The thread around his little finger throbbed, as if calling out his lie. Unlike so many times before, Shouichi didn’t try to cover it from his sight now.

“Hmmm. I know your lying face, Shouichi,” Spanner drawled as he grabbed a screwdriver and took it to another one of his mini-Moscas. “Right now? You’re lying through your teeth.”

“Is that so?” Shouichi said. “I’ll try to get a better poker face, then.”

For the first time since the younger generation of Vongola Guardians had returned to their time, Shouichi truly felt like this was a new beginning for him.

He just needed to find a way to test that hypothesis.


End file.
